Data Methodology

Source data

Primary source: OpenStreetMap, extracted via Overpass API queries against brand:wikidata=Q37158 (Starbucks). Secondary signals: public business registries, transit proximity data, and Wikipedia geo-entities for landmark enrichment.

Record schema

Every store record captures: geographic identity (lat, lng, address, city, state, country), temporal identity (opening hours for seven days), feature flags (drive-through, Wi-Fi, mobile order, outdoor seating), performance signals (outlet count, Wi-Fi speed, noise level, customer rating when available), and a stable OSM ID.

Validation pipeline

• Coordinate bounds check: rejects any record outside its declared country's bounding box.
• Slug uniqueness: URL-safe slugs are generated per (country, state, city) tuple; collisions are resolved by appending the last four digits of the OSM ID.
• Hours normalization: 24-hour format, explicit closed day handling, weekend split.
• Content validation: generated prose is checked against a per-store proper-noun allow-list (derived from address tokens, city, state, country, and nearby landmarks) to prevent hallucinated place names.
• Near-duplicate detection: character-level 5-gram Jaccard similarity is computed across all 12,000+ generated descriptions; threshold >0.6 flags a record for re-generation.

Refresh cadence

Full source re-ingestion runs on a recurring schedule. Between refreshes, individual corrections reported via our contact form are applied ad-hoc within 14 business days.

4a. Corrections policy

If you spot an incorrect address, hour, feature flag, or landmark association, submit a correction via our contact page. Reports are triaged weekly; accepted corrections are merged within 14 business days and the record's dateModified is updated accordingly.

Known limitations

• Hours can drift between OSM refreshes and Starbucks's own updates; for holiday and unusual hours, we recommend confirming via the official Starbucks store locator.
• Seasonal store closures, remodels, and pop-up locations may lag behind real-world status.
• Phone numbers are optional in OSM data; absent values are rendered as "—" rather than fabricated.